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How Do You Block "No Caller ID" calls

I've been getting pest calls from a call centre in Dunfermline Scotland. I zapped the number straight off and since then trueCall has successfully blocked all calls from the number. Except it hasn't quite .. .. .. ..

The call centre immediately rings me back with no caller ID. trueCall can only identify the caller as "No Caller ID" and the unit tells me that this caller sadly can't be zapped. There is a quite definite pattern emerging so that's what persuades me it's the Dunfermline Call Centre [I know it's you] and that its ITC systems are testing trueCall's defences for weaknesses.

Any ideas guys? Anyone come across this? And if so how did you solve it?

This is similar to the Standard Profile but applies additional controls both over calls where the Caller-ID is unavailable for any reason (if Caller-ID is withheld, unavailable, or if it is an international call) and calls from businesses (call centres often call from 030, 05, 08 or 09 numbers).

In addition to identifying themselves with their name, these callers are asked to press a specific key on their phone keypad to get through (Shield & Whisper).

Funnily enough I've been having this "no caller ID" problem for the last couple of days too (though have no knowledge of Dunfermline). I've just done exactly what you say, TC, only to find I'm going through a pattern of "weblink failed" (8 times I think so far). Came here to see if there was any further information but it appears not to be a general problem. (Exits stage left looking for his earplugs!)

Following the helpful advice from Pierrot [above] mid-December, I reset my default [day & night] for unknown callers to shield &whisper. [I use the custom setting for handling incoming calls incidentally.] I still get no caller IDs on my list of calls, but the callers just don't bother to hang on long enough now to press a key to get through. It's admittedly a more irksome procedure but so far it hasn't deterred genuine callers.

Thankfully, I haven't encountered the problem with Weblink you describe, so can't be of help on this, sorry. I'm confident one of our more knowledgeable forum members will kindly assist you.

Thanks for the comment. Going to Secure Profile sorted it for me as I suspected it would.

Weblink is not a real issue. I simply checked to see if there were a problem; obviously there was not so I simply waited. This does happen from time to time and can be caused by any number of things. I meant of course that I had made a series of attempts within a couple of hours so that the changes I'd made could be set in place. Failure might be due to noise on the line or any number of things. Had it been 8 scheduled days in a row I'd have been on the 'phone to HQ!

All appears well now so will wait for the next time the gremlins strike.

I realise this wouldn't suit many people, but as my mobile is my main point of contact I just send any call not explicitly on my star list straight to messaging. 07 and a few STD codes are wild-carded.

Please explain - why do you think this call broke your settings? If the call was a mis-dialled fax, it will have been trying to contact a fax machine at your end. The whisper mechanism can't distinguish what is "spoken" - it will accept any audio, even noise - and that was sufficient for the call screening to then progress to message taking.

This concern raised by Members [fairly in my opinion] seems to be running under two posts: this post and a separate one in trueCall Units under "Which protocol handles 'Blank Caller ID' calls". Should these be cross-referenced Mr Top Cat? What do you think?

There is no fax machine attached to this line. There has not been in the nearly 60 years I have lived here

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I don't doubt it, but a fax machine can dial you in error - and there is such a thing as fax spam where advertising fax pages are sent unsolicited to any fax machine the spammers can make contact with. They try random numbers until they find one where a fax machine responds, and then spam it forever after. It is a significant problem in offices, tying up the line and wasting resources (paper and toner, or expensive thermal paper in older days).

Meanwhile, perhaps I am being dense, but as far as I can see you have unrecognised callers (ie CLIs not on the zap or star list) set to go to whisper. As I said before, the whisper system only asks for the caller to announce themselves - and a fax machine tone would be accepted as an announcement.

I am not familiar with the day/night setting, but the first line of your call handling settings shows "shield and whisper" for unrecognised callers. Maybe I am misreading the way you have laid it out (I inserted the code block formatting because the forum software would otherwise have destroyed your tabulation).

Not having a blocker myself I'm no expert and can't comment further - maybe somebody else can clear this up?